Star Wars Trilogy: The Play!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away (like Boise), The Star Wars Trilogy Live was performed by a group of high school students… and it was awesome!

When I heard that Centennial High School in Boise was putting on a stage play of the Star Wars trilogy at the same time as my son’s birthday, I knew I had to go to there! I loaded the Geek Spawn and three of his friends in the car and off we went on a three hour drive to see The Star Wars Trilogy Live. SO worth it!

You don’t have to be a Star Wars junkie to appreciate the work and talent that went into this production, but it doesn’t hurt! The play condenses the three GOOD Star Wars movies into about a half hour each, so if you’re not familiar with the story, you may have a hard time keeping up. But after 37 years, there are very few people who haven’t seen Star Wars yet!

Every Star Wars movie begins with crawling text apparently flying through space. SW Live had a very creative way to accomplish this: Blacklight. This picture from the Return of the Jedi portion of the play shows the text as the actors would hold them up to the blacklight, then move backward, giving the illusion of the text moving away from the viewer. It was a simple but creative effect!

The play had a talented builder who created several scaled down versions of the space ships. As they were used throughout the play, actors in black would hold them up and “fly” them around. Explosions were accomplished by pulling party poppers behind the ships. Again, a simple but creative effect!

Additionally, the costumes were perfect for the show. My favorite part of the production was Jabba the Hutt (pictured above). With several people inside his body, he was a hilariously fun villain! It was a simple but creative effect!

That brings me to the acting. Perfect! The young students did a terrific job performing their roles and working together to bring a very fun show to the audience. It may have been a high school performance but it felt very professional! The main roles were played by Wyatt Sherod as Luke, Mia Raymes as Leia and Tyler Salkield and Han, but everyone did a terrific job!

The play was adapted from the movies by its director, Paul Archibeque. He did a good job of not only bringing the story to a stage production, but also adding in several humorous touches.

I wish I could tell you that The Star Wars Trilogy Live is going to be running in Boise for years to come, but alas, its run is over. Maybe someday they will do a revival production, but until then we have to impatiently wait. However, if the cast and crew puts as much effort into their other shows as the put into SW Live, I’m sure anything they do will be worth seeing!

Geek Spawn and his friends after the show

Does this sound like a show YOU would like to see? Tell me in the comments!

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